Ford Motor Company, University of Tennessee Commit to Multimillion Dollar Partnership

Ford Motor Company and the University of Tennessee announced a new partnership for “a stream mitigation and restoration agreement” that will focus on water streams located on the University’s Lone Oaks Farm.

Lone Oaks Farm is located in West Tennessee and serves as a 4-H and science, technology, education, and math (STEM) education center for K-12 students.

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Commentary: What Trump’s ‘America First’ Agenda Got Right in Central Europe, Ukraine, and the Politics of Security

Russia’s invasion not only poses an existential threat to Ukrainian sovereignty, but it also represents a direct challenge to American power and credibility globally. If Vladimir Putin prevails, the promise of the United States to act as a security guarantor through NATO in Europe or on its own anywhere will be in shambles.

Moscow is clearly pursuing two goals simultaneously: territorial gains in Ukraine as part of the revanchist ambition to restore the Soviet-era sphere of influence and, more importantly, degrading American strategic prominence, with the goal of driving the United States out of Europe.

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Minnesotans Demand Permanent Tax Cuts: ‘They’re Stealing from Us’

Minnesotans are calling on Gov. Tim Walz and the Legislature to return the record-breaking $9.3 billion budget surplus to the people by permanently cutting taxes.

A crowd gathered inside the Minnesota Capitol rotunda Saturday for the “Give it Back Tax Rally.” The rally was hosted by the Center of the American Experiment and involved several speakers including multiple radio hosts and a former U.S. congressman.

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Columbus Challenges Ohio’s ‘Conscience Clause’ with Lawsuit

Ohio’s largest city filed suit Wednesday to stop a new law that allows medical providers to deny treatment based on their beliefs.

Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein filed the suit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court on behalf of the city of Columbus, challenging the law, known as the “Conscience Clause,” that protects individuals and health care payers who deny care or payment for any service they feel violates their conscience.

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Budget Compromise Not Expected in Time for Veto Session

Glenn Youngkin

The General Assembly will be back in town Wednesday to vote on Governor Glenn Youngkin’s amendments and vetoes to legislation passed earlier this year, but are unlikely to have a budget compromise ready for approval by then.

“Informally, the chairs are going back and forth a little bit, and we keep getting briefed, but we have not really gotten to a point where we can do a final negotiation, if you will. There’s still significant differences there in what we we’re working on,” conferee Senator Emmett Hanger (R-Augusta) told The Virginia Star on Thursday. “We’ve got some tentative agreements, I guess you’d say.

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Connecticut State Employee Contracts Ratified

By a 22-13 vote, Connecticut’s state Senate on Friday ratified contracts with state workers estimated to cost taxpayers roughly $1.9 billion.

The Democrat-controlled state House of Representatives approved the agreements with the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) 96-52 the prior day. All House Democrats and only one House Republican, Thomas Delnicki (R-South Windsor), voted for the deals. The Senate vote came down along party lines.

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Commentary: Joe Biden and His Hostility to Conscience Rights

In 2020, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against the University of Vermont Medical Center for forcing a nurse to assist at an abortion. Trump’s Department of Justice called the hospital’s bullying of the nurse “the kind of indecent coercion [that] violates everything this country stands for.”

In 2021, the Biden administration dropped this lawsuit. It did not want to defend the nurse. This rankled former Trump officials. “It is a dereliction of duty that is an insult to the bipartisan consensus that says you cannot force people to assist in abortions,” Roger Severino, the former head of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) told Fox News.

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Record Number of Hispanic Republicans Are Running for State House in Border State

A record number of Hispanics in New Mexico are running for state House seats as members of the Republican Party, Axios reported Tuesday.

The state, which has the highest percentage of Hispanics in the country, has 18 Hispanic Republicans campaigning to be elected to the Democrat-controlled state House of Representatives, Axios reported. The candidates are largely running competitive districts, both urban and rural.

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Georgia Officials Won’t Reveal Business Development Incentives Said to Be ‘In Progress’

Georgia officials have lauded the decisions of companies to either relocate their headquarters or expand their operations in Georgia.

Whether the state of Georgia offered tax incentives to those companies is a closely-guarded secret, and taxpayers will not know until the state says the project is complete and no longer “in progress.”

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Pennsylvania Still Restricts Nurses’ Scope of Practice, Health Care Options

Though a majority of states allow nurse practitioners full authority to deliver care, Pennsylvania still requires oversight from a physician. A bill in the legislature could change it though, but it’s unclear if it will advance through the General Assembly soon.

The legislation, SB25, sponsored by Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Washington, would update state requirements for nurses and would remove a requirement for nurse practitioners to have a collaborative agreement with a physician for them to practice and write prescriptions.

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Free Speech Criticism Has Unlikely Source: The Press

When the far-right website Infowars was banned by all the major tech platforms in 2018, mainstream media outlets didn’t come to the defense of founder Alex Jones, whom they described as a conspiracy theorist.

Two years later, the same outlets had a similar non-response when Big Tech imposed another media ban — this one on the New York Post, one of America’s oldest and most well-established newspapers.

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Americans Support Trump’s China Tariffs as Republican Senators Push to Remove Them

As GOP senators seek to roll back former President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China now that he’s out of office, polling indicates Americans want to keep the harsh policies in place.

“For decades, Congress cut tariffs without much thought. But we cannot continue to do that when it comes to products made in China,” Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “We should do everything possible to move supply chains out of China, but this so-called ‘China bill’ is actually subsidizing manufacturing in Communist China. It’s ridiculous.”

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Virginia Governor Plans to Elevate His National Profile Ahead of 2024

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is looking to raise his national profile by establishing two new political groups in the aftermath of becoming the first Republican to win statewide in over a decade, Politico reported.

The move will allow the recently elected governor to have a larger role in the upcoming midterm elections, Politico reported. Youngkin, who is limited to one term as governor, has not expressed any interest in a 2024 presidential run, but has not ruled out the possibility.

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Connecticut Approved for Federal Funds for Substance Use Disorder Treatment

Connecticut has been approved to receive federal funding for new substance abuse treatments, Gov. Ned Lamont said.

The governor announced the state will receive $30 million in annual Medicaid funding that will benefit residents who are struggling with substance abuse to provide them heightened treatment. Funding will also cover residential care services while increasing provider payment rates.

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Judge Rules That Prisons Must Accommodate ‘Transgender’ Prisoners with ‘Gender-Affirming’ Surgery

A federal judge ruled on Monday that a federal prisoner is entitled to surgical procedures that will alter his body in order to accommodate his “transgender” identity.

As reported by USA Today, Judge Nancy Rosenstengel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois ordered the United States Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to provide a surgeon who will perform the operation for a prisoner going by the name of Christina Iglesias, a man who believes that he is a woman. The decision ended a case that has lasted for three years.

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Arlington Approves Plan for Amazon’s HQ2 Development

The Arlington County Board voted unanimously Saturday to approve plans for development at Amazon’s HQ2, including the Helix, an up to 350-foot high spiral-shaped tower with indoor meeting spaces and a walking paths on the outside. The PenPlace plan also includes three 22-story office buildings, public park space, and retail pavilions. The vote concludes a year-long public review process, and planning officials recommended that the board approve the plan, noting that it fits within broader goals for Pentagon City. “We have a brand-new sector plan in place with Pentagon City, and it is really exciting that this first project out of the gate under that new sector plan not only conforms with it, but exceeds it, right,” board Chair Katie Cristol said in summary remarks before the vote. Cristol said the plan met and exceeded Arlington’s Climate Change, Energy and Environment Commission goals, and would also benefit the community, small business owners, construction workers, and students. Amazon has highlighted the eye-catching design of the tower, green spaces, and public walking paths through the compound. Arlington Community High School will also have a permanent home on the PenPlace site. After a 2018 announcement that Amazon would build its HQ2 in Arlington,…

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Over 40 Terror Watchlist Suspects Crossed the Border Illegally on Biden’s Watch

At least 42 suspects on the United States terror watchlist have been arrested by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) trying to enter the country illegally across the southern border.

As reported by Fox News, the U.S. Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations reported that they have “arrested 42 subjects who were on the terror watchlist and attempted to enter the United States illegally” since January 20th, 2021. These individuals were all found in the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), which archives information on all foreign individuals who are “reasonably suspected” of being involved with terrorist organizations and activities.

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Activist Aviator Says Cardiologist Tells Him 30 Percent of Vaccinated Pilots Would Fail Health Screenings Due to Vaccine Injuries

Joshua Yoder, an airline pilot and co-founder of the U.S. Freedom Flyers said during an interview Wednesday that a cardiologist told him that if the airlines were conducting certain health screenings, 30 percent of the pilots currently flying would probably be disqualified due to vaccine-induced heart conditions.

Yoder told tech millionaire and Vaccine Safety Research Foundation founder Steve Kirsch that his group has received hundreds of reports about pilots flying planes while suffering from adverse side effects from the COVID vaccines.

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